Five everyday excuses that bruise your brand

Working with organizations for over 25 years to transform customer service culture, I've discovered that some employees – who would describe themselves as solid performers – actually have a habit of delivering more excuses than results. Unfortunately, your clients don't buy excuses – literally – and the more your team members rationalize poor service, the more they'll cost your organization in trust equity. See if your employees use any of these six common customer service excuses. We'll start with the worst offenders:

1. "It's against policy."Customer service policies must make obvious sense to clients. If not, overly restrictive and outdated rules practically invite customers to argue with employees or rant about your brand in social media. Set your policies around what's best for your brand and best for customer loyalty. Don't let lawyers establish your customer service policies. If you must have an unpopular policy, ensure that your employees understand it, can get behind it and can easily explain it to customers. More importantly, train and empower frontline employees to overrule policies when common sense dictates.

2. "We're swamped this time of year."This excuse is similar to the recorded on-hold phone message you hear from call centres: "Due to high call volumes..." Essentially this excuse tells customers that the organization has experienced this problem repeatedly, but (since they don't really care that much about customer experience) hasn't bothered to do anything to fix it. That's better left unsaid. Best to simply thank the customer for their patience, and get on with what you can do for them.

3. "I'm not authorized to do that."In my customer service seminars, we talk about employee status and how it's a mistake to put a customer at a higher or lower status than the service provider. Instead, you want employees to be viewed by customers as their trusted advisors. So when you need to ask higher-ups for input, explain to the customer that you want to look into this further to see what you can come up with. Then, discretely discuss the matter with your supervisor. When afterward you report back to the customer, tell them, "Here's what I came up with." That makes customers feel like they're dealing with an equal; not wasting their time.

4. "I assumed you wanted..."Clients want you to help them make decisions. And in the case where customers view you as their trusted advisor, they even want you to make decisions on their behalf. But that only works when the service provider has discussed the customer's needs and overall objectives. We earn the right to make assumptions after talking with the customer and gaining their respect. Paraphrase your understanding of their needs with the words like "sounds like". For example, "Sounds like you'd like to..." After you've done that, customers will be much more comfortable and confident with your assumptions.

5. "Sorry, I'm new here."Actually, in this case, clients will accept this excuse, which is why I put it last. Customers can be wonderfully compassionate when a newbie, who realizes something is taking longer than it should, apologizes for the delay and explains the situation. Tip: Rather than saying "bear with me" (which sounds like an order), say, "I appreciate your patience." For example, "Sorry for the delay, this is my first week here. I appreciate your patience with me." Now the customer feels like a hero for being nice.

Bottom line: In every organization, things will occasionally go wrong and put customer relationships at risk. The key to preserving the customer connection is ensuring frontline employees are trained to recover trust. As for managers, revisit your policies to ensure they don't force employees to automatically say no to customers when instead they should be looking for ways to say yes. After all, if you don't satisfy that client, your competitor will. Then you'll have in bigger problems where excuses won't matter.

This article is based on the bestselling book, Becoming a Service Icon in 90 Minutes a Month by Hall of Fame motivational speaker, Jeff Mowatt. To obtain your own copy of his book or to inquire about engaging Jeff for your team, visit www.jeffmowatt.com.